Kinship Names as Vocatives in Folk Songs from the Xanthi Region

Abstract

The paper presents the kinship names as vocatives, appearing in folk songs from the Xanthi region excerpted from two collections (Pomaki. The Muslims of Rodopi (1995) by P. Theoharidis and Dry me, Burn me… (2012) by E. Ushev). Various ways of addressing the mother, the daughter, the son and other relatives are presented in the research comprising the kinship names of persons with blood and non-blood relations. The excerpted material is dominated by the female part, as the greatest variety and frequency of use is observed in vocatives to the mother, which confirms the thesis of the cult of the Great Mother and of the strong respect towards motherhood in the region’s past. The research covers the majority of traditional kinship names in the region, including diminutive nouns typical of the Rhodope dialects. Various vocatives with interesting meanings are detected in kinship names of persons with non-blood relations, which complete the picture of the common Bulgarian kinship names.